However, this is not the only change they have made to the historical temperature record in recent years. Climate4You, fortunately, archived the GISS data in May 2008. Comparing this dataset with today’s version, we can see that about 0.10C of warming, or more, has been added to temperatures in the last decade, compared to data up to about 1950.

Alterations to temperature record 1881-2008

It must be remembered that these are only changes made by GISS since 2008. As I pointed out, prior to 2008, other adjustments of about 0.03C had already been added to the numbers originally declared just a few years earlier. These adjustments must, therefore, also be added on to the adjustments made since.

An adjustment of 0.10C or so may not seem a lot, but the latest GISS anomaly, against the baseline of 1951-80, is 0.44C. These adjustments make up about a quarter of this figure.

I have also done some digging on the original numbers GISS declared for 1998, which seem much different to what they now show. News on this later.

What ever you do don’t play poker against Hansen , he may not be able to forecast the climate worth a dam , but his ‘ luck ‘ with the way all these adjustments support ‘the cause’ he does so very much promote. If seen at the table means you would not stand no chance against him.

This site used to carry the statement “Not evil, just wrong”. That may well apply to most of devotees and many of the proponents of the CAGW creed. It is overtime to continue to pretend it applies to all. There are enemies of humanity involved in this.

They, their actions, their manipulations, their destruction of human capacity to see reality, need to be cataloged. Be they “scientists”, “activists”, “journalists”, functionaries businesses politicians or toadies. The day is fast approaching when the world will judge them, and the evidence needs to be gathered and stored.

“An adjustment of 0.10C or so may need [not] seem a lot, but the latest GISS anomaly, against the baseline of 1951-80, is 0.44C. These adjustments make up about a quarter of this figure.”

Indeed, when the claimed basis for CAGW projections is all about several tenths of a degree, each bit matters. In the example of U.S. temperature history, Hansen’s GISS changed it over a key period by at least around 0.3 degrees, as seen by comparing plots within the latter portion of http://s7.postimage.org/69qd0llcr/intermediate.gif (click to enlarge).

Those who aren’t really bothered in the slightest by the preceding do likewise with sea level rise history (actually less rise in the 2nd half of the 20th century than in the first in trustworthy data in contrast to claims otherwise), cloud cover history, solar history, arctic ice history, and just about everything.

GISTEMP uses a horrible algorithm for interpolating and infilling the data, so much so that it;s not even useful to call anything it produces a “temperature”. I encourage everyone to check out the paper on which it is based to see this for themselves:

Hansen has followed up his “Lights Out Upstairs” outburst with another outburst dismissing critics as “court jesters” with whom he will have no truck. (Lights Out is now cited on the NASA website.) His new jeremiad re-iterated the position of NASA spokesman Gavin Schmidt that U.S. errors “didn’t matter” because the U.S. was only 2% of the earth’s surface.

I hear this ‘fortunately archived’ thing quite a lot. Is there any way of starting a systematic archiving of all this data that gets ‘adjusted’ so much? Or does the Wayback machine do that for us nowadays.

knr says:
January 18, 2013 at 4:37 am
What ever you do don’t play poker against Hansen , he may not be able to forecast the climate worth a dam , but his ‘ luck ‘ with the way all these adjustments support ‘the cause’ he does so very much promote. If seen at the table means you would not stand no chance against him.

Something happened to GISS US temps since 1999.
Here is Hansen, the keeper of US temp’s and father of global warming in 1999 trying to explain why US temperature were lower in 1999 than in the 1930’s. By almost .5Chttp://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_07/
Then go here and chart the data as it currently stands. Plug in Annual and from 1895 to 1999.http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/na.html
Now in the new, improved version of US temps, 1999 is 3F higher than 1895, and higher than the 1930’s. So somehow things got adjusted about 2F UP!
Now plug 1999-2011 into that NCDC site, and you’ll find 2011 about 1F lower than 1999. So
if you join the 1999 Hansen chart with the 1999-2011 NCDC chart, you end up with 2011 being about as warm as 1895 and a full 1C cooler than the 1930’s.

What would be really helpful would be a freely available zip file containing all the data available over the years in an uneditable format with citations, and a spreadsheet with the data in a usable table, so we could generate our own plots with the comparisons, etc. I personally haven’t got time to assemble it all, but if someone has this available, that would be some SERIOUS debate firepower for all the CAGW friends I have who can’t accept posts from “denialist” websites as any kind of evidence.

Something happened to GISS US temps since 1999.
Here is Hansen, the keeper of US temp’s and father of global warming in 1999 trying to explain why US temperature were lower in 1999 than in the 1930′s. By almost .5Chttp://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_07/

Looks like Hansen is staying ahead of the game, Glenn ….. this is all I got on that site:

— Please Note —
Due to technical problems with the GISS webserver, much of our site content is currently not available.
Many webpages are offline, but we are progressively making more available.
No interactive content, such as creating scientific plots using web forms or searching the publications database, is enabled.

— Please Note —
Due to technical problems with the GISS webserver, much of our site content is currently not available.
Many webpages are offline, but we are progressively making more available.
No interactive content, such as creating scientific plots using web forms or searching the publications database, is enabled.

I had posted this before. As I said then, I don’t know if these changes were made after GISS changes, before GISS (change a record here, another there, they’ll all add up), or are unrelated to GISS.
But they happened.
===============================================================
Gunga Din says:
September 26, 2012 at 1:22 pm
I had put this up before. I don’t know if it’s “GISS” or not. I don’t know if it went into the GISS calculations.
But I have the record highs and lows the NWS posted in 2007 for Columbus Ohio. One small spot on the globe. I also have the record highs and lows they posted in April of 2012. Here is a comparison of the record highs. I did not include new records set after 2007. I was looking for changes to records recorded in the past.
(Note: The 2012 list included ties. The 2007 list did not.) Again, I hope the copy/paste works right!
Newer-April ’12 Older-’07 (did not include ties)
6-Jan 68 1946 Jan-06 69 1946 Same year but “new” record 1*F lower
9-Jan 62 1946 Jan-09 65 1946 Same year but “new” record 3*F lower
31-Jan 66 2002 Jan-31 62 1917 “New” record 4*F higher but not in ’07 list
4-Feb 61 1962 Feb-04 66 1946 “New” tied records 5*F lower
4-Feb 61 1991
23-Mar 81 1907 Mar-23 76 1966 “New” record 5*F higher but not in ’07 list
25-Mar 84 1929 Mar-25 85 1945 “New” record 1*F lower
5-Apr 82 1947 Apr-05 83 1947 “New” tied records 1*F lower
5-Apr 82 1988
6-Apr 83 1929 Apr-06 82 1929 Same year but “new” record 1*F higher
19-Apr 85 1958 Apr-19 86 1941 “New” tied records 1*F lower
19-Apr 85 2002
16-May 91 1900 May-16 96 1900 Same year but “new” record 5*F lower
30-May 93 1953 May-30 95 1915 “New” record 2*F lower
31-Jul 100 1999 Jul-31 96 1954 “New” record 4*F higher but not in ’07 list
11-Aug 96 1926 Aug-11 98 1944 “New” tied records 2*F lower
11-Aug 96 1944
18-Aug 94 1916 Aug-18 96 1940 “New” tied records 2*F lower
18-Aug 94 1922
18-Aug 94 1940
23-Sep 90 1941 Sep-23 91 1945 “New” tied records 1*F lower
23-Sep 90 1945
23-Sep 90 1961
9-Oct 88 1939 Oct-09 89 1939 Same year but “new” record 1*F lower
10-Nov 72 1949 Nov-10 71 1998 “New” record 1*F higher but not in ’07 list
12-Nov 75 1849 Nov-12 74 1879 “New” record 1*F higher but not in ’07 list
12-Dec 65 1949 Dec-12 64 1949 Same year but “new” record 1*F lower
22-Dec 62 1941 Dec-22 63 1941 Same year but “new” record 1*F lower
29-Dec 64 1984 Dec-29 67 1889 “New” record 3*F lower
Gunga Din says:
September 26, 2012 at 1:31 pm
PS Here’s where I got the list.http://www.erh.noaa.gov/iln/cmhrec.htm
It seems to have changed again. Now they include the date it was updated, June 28, 2012, yet they have new records set in July of 2012. Perhaps they should at least update update date?

‘Independent’ in 2000 and 2013: brief reminder
Then : snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past
Now: : snow-chaos-flights-and-trains-cancelled-schools-and-roads-closed
Then:
Britain’s winter ends tomorrow with further indications of a striking environmental change: snow is starting to disappear from our lives.
Sledges, snowmen, snowballs and the excitement of waking to find that the stuff has settled outside are all a rapidly diminishing part of Britain’s culture, as warmer winters – which scientists are attributing to global climate change – produce not only fewer white Christmases, but fewer white Januaries and Februaries.
It is the continuation of a trend that has been increasingly visible in the past 15 years.
Global warming, the heating of the atmosphere by increased amounts of industrial gases, is now accepted as a reality by the international community. Average temperatures in However, the warming is so far manifesting itself more in winters which are less cold than in much hotter summers. According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”.“Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,” he said.
But very little research has been done on the cultural implications of climate change – into the possibility, for example, that our notion of Christmas might have to shift.
Professor Jarich Oosten, an anthropologist at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, says that even if we no longer see snow, it will remain culturally important.
David Parker, at the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Berkshire, says ultimately,British children could have only virtual experience of snow. Via the internet, they might wonder at polar scenes – or eventually “feel” virtual cold.
The chances are certainly now stacked against the sort of heavy snowfall in cities that inspired Impressionist painters, such as Sisley, and the 19th century poet laureate Robert Bridges, who wrote in “London Snow” of it, “stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying”.http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-724017.html

Now:
Snow chaos: Flights and trains cancelled, schools and roads closed, 36 hours of blizzards and 10,000 without electricity. Flights have been cancelled, train companies have axed rail services and roads across the country have been closed as Britain’s transport system struggles to cope with heavy snowfall.
Drivers were warned to avoid all but essential journeys in south Wales amid strong winds, plunging temperatures and the looming threat of blizzards.
Forecasts also forced hundreds of schools to shut their doors, meaning some sixth-form and college students saw their A-level exams postponed.
The adverse weather has already sparked panic-buying and left more than 10,000 people without electricity. Amber alerts were in place for the Midlands, London and the South, the east of England, the South West, the North West and Northern Ireland.http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/snow-chaos-flights-and-trains-cancelled-schools-and-roads-closed-36-hours-of-blizzards-and-10000-without-electricity-8453159.html

Vukcevic – shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Please don’t discuss the snow and cold temperatures in Europe. Don’t you know that we’re only supposed to talk about the RECORD heat in Australia??? That is by direct decree from our Climate Overlords, the keepers of “the Cause”(tm)…

Frank Lansner has done some excellent follow-up on the missing “decline” in temperatures from 1940 to 1975, and things get even more interesting…..

Three decades of adjustments

When did the “funny business” begin? By 1980 Hansen and GISS had already produced graphs which were starting to neutralize the decline. His graphs of 1987 and then 2007 further reduced the decline, until the cooling from 1960 to 1975 was completely lost.

Three decades of adjustments

When did the “funny business” begin? By 1980 Hansen and GISS had already produced graphs which were starting to neutralize the decline. His graphs of 1987 and then 2007 further reduced the decline, until the cooling from 1960 to 1975 was completely lost….

It must be a new kind of science. In the past you made an hypothesis based on the available evidence and if the evidence didn’t fit you changed the hypothesis. Now, if the evidence doesn’t fit you change the evidence.

Frank K. says:
January 18, 2013 at 8:20 am
…Vukcevic – shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Please don’t discuss the snow and cold temperatures in Europe. Don’t you know that we’re only supposed to talk about the RECORD heat in Australia???

Ah well, most of Ausies are in London anyway, as population statistics show
Australia 23 million, Europe 733 million.

As public reputation of politicians and journalists has been in the tank for a generation now they had to start finding willing scientists as proxies. Expect the reputation of scientists to plummet accordingly.

Once more, Mr. Watts posts an article on his blog, which insinuates that GISS scientists committed fraud, i.e., they are being accused of doing not scientifically legitimate manipulations of the data for the purpose to deceive, by making the anthropogenic influence on climate larger than it was. The “skeptic” crowd in the forum understands the cue and transforms the insinuation into open accusation. No evidence is being provided that all of the adjustments even originate in changes of the methodology applied by the GISS scientists, instead of coming from updates in the source data sets on which the surface temperature analysis relies. Neither is any evidence provided that the adjustments haven’t been scientifically legitimate. The “skeptic” crowd doesn’t need any real evidence, it longs for confirmation that there was some conspiracy of evil scientists who promoted an anthropogenic climate change “hoax” with sinister, non-scientific intentions behind it. The fact that adjustments have been made is obviously considered by itself sufficient “evidence” for the alleged fraud.

The insinuation is quite obvious from the title of the article, “Hansen’s NASA GISS – cooling the past, warming the present”. The irony is that even the figure to be seen in the article proves this title to be a falsehood, since both the early past of the temperature record and recent decades have been adjusted net upward, whereas the early to mid 20th century has been adjusted net downward. Thus, the adjustments as shown in the figure, taken as a whole have increased the magnitude of the variability over the whole temperature record, actually suggesting that a somewhat larger fraction of this variability may be attributed to other causes than to the increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases from anthropogenic emissions over the whole period than previously thought, which is in contradiction to what the scientists are being accused of here.

Disclaimer: This, like all my other comments, is my personal opinion and not to be considerated as a statement on behalf of any of the institutions with which I am professionally affiliated.

If James Hansen offered investments, and in promoting those investments he used data from
GISS to verify certain claims, he would subject to charges of criminal fraud because of his deliberate adulteration of the GISS record.

HADCRUT4 seems to track lower than the Co2 line until about 1998 then it seems to correlate nicely since then, whereas GISTEMP tracks above Co2 until about mid 1960s, then generally lower until 1998 then higher since then. We are over-generalising, but if Co2 is caused by temp, and the 2 are expected to track (no time to equilibrium, or maybe its built into the scaling), I’d go for HADCRUT4 over GISTEMP any day. Seems to correllate better. I wonder how the satellite records go for correlation with CO2…

Fair enough. I guess I got sidetracked by other posters’ referrals to similar pages in which the US was the focus. But, the point still is, you’ve established that the temperatures have been continually adjusted, and that the adjustments appear, counter to what one might expect, generally to go in the same direction, lowering earlier values and raising later ones. The question is, is that prima facie evidence that the adjustments are wrong or nefarious? Or might they, in fact, be plausible when one looks at the reasons behind them?

It is very difficult to challenge the US Govt if the US Govt doesn’t want to be challenged. To sue you need their permission. If the media began questioning the discrepancies then we might have a chance. Yeah, and I’m going to win the big lottery. Writing your Congress critters is just about the only thing that you can do and that’s pretty damn pathetic. We’re doing Chicago Politics now.

That offset is apparent just looking at the three series, though. It’s a little of apples and oranges, as the satellite measurements are for tropospheric temperatures, and GISS is for the surface.

The important thing is the proportionality factor. That is the term which creates the curvature in the accumulated CO2 graph, which matches the observations to a degree which confirms that there is no room for human inputs to be appreciably affecting the overall concentration.

I just noticed your comment here. You don’t have to use the same affine parameters for each data set. As long as all the data sets are more or less affinely related, you can get a match using the free parameters.

Which one is “right”? Who knows? It doesn’t affect the conclusion because scaling to match the variability also matches the overall slope for all the data sets. And, the integral of the temperature, affinely scaled to match the CO2 derivative, will always integrate out, starting from the initial condition, to be approximately equal to the CO2 measurements – that being more or less a tautology.

The key thing here is that the variability and the slope of the overall trend are always in roughly the same proportion across all the data sets. That is what gives us the smoking gun to convict temperature as the driving force in CO2 concentration.

“That is the term which creates the curvature in the accumulated CO2 graph, which matches the observations to a degree which confirms that there is no room for human inputs to be appreciably affecting the overall concentration.”

I don’t want to be cryptic about this. The reason for this is that the incremental human inputs also have an upward trend. Thus, attempting to add them in will result in additional curvature. To get the curvature back so that it meshes with CO2 measurements, we have to scale back the temperature component. But, then the variability in the CO2 derivative and the temperature do not match. Hence, there is no room for significant human inputs.

The data get “adjusted” at several steps. GIStemp makes their view of things via a strange and wonderful process that I’ve detailed at great length. (And which, IMHO, “has issues”).

BUT, it is based on a merge of GHCN and USHCN, so any ‘adjusting’ in them gets double dipped into GIStemp results.

I’d started with GIStemp, and then realized that it was only 1/2 the problem as it was a double-stack of “little here, a little there”…

So one salami slice happens in station selection. Another in “Quality Control” adjustments. Several in various stages of “homogenizing”. etc. etc.

On “archiving”:

The data are in constant flux. There is no ‘checkpoint / archive’ that I’ve found at any level. At the End Of Life of one variation of the base data (GHCN / USHCN) there MAY be a final checkpoint taken for a while.

I have saved copies of GHCN v1, and v2 along with a vintage USHCN. Mostly from about 2009 when I was working on it more actively. One of my complaints at the time was that various station data shows up ‘whenever’ and sometimes months after a given date. ( I called those “Zombie” thermometers… suddenly coming back to life after significant absence…) So to ‘properly’ archive the data you would need to take daily snapshots. It is possible that a monthly snapshot would do for many uses. Then, on top of that, GIStemp can run at any time. As it runs, it does a ‘remix’ on the thermometer data.

Several steps ‘select’ which station data to use to adjust which other station data. For that reason, any added station data or changed station data can reach (1200 km at a time, three times in cascaded steps) far and wide in changing things.

For that reason, to ‘archive’ GISS ‘data’, you need to grab a copy every time you run it on any changed GHCN / USHCN input (which is any time GISS gets a new copy of the input data, so could be every time it is run, or ‘monthly’, depending on what procedures are used.)

Now if all of this sounds “Just SOooo wrong!”, that was the experience I had when I figure out what they were doing. There just IS NOT any STABLE real data in GISS. Ever. It’s a wobbly bowl of inflating Jello Data changing with each GHCN / USHCN update, reload, adjustment, QA run, etc. etc. etc. (Even with the addition of historical data found ‘somewhere’ or with older readings from the 1800 removed for ‘quality questions’)

It is that ‘never the same result twice’ nature that caused me to assert it is not possible to do science using this ‘product’, as you can never have the same result twice so it can never be tested nor falsified. It just ‘re-imagines’ the data each time it is run…

What is found is a degree of “shift” of the input data of roughly the same order of scale as the reputed Global Warming.

The inevitable conclusion of this is that we are depending on the various climate codes to be nearly 100% perfect in removing this warming shift, of being insensitive to it, for the assertions about global warming to be real.

Simple changes of composition of the GHCN data set between Version 1 and Version 3 can account for the observed “Global Warming”; and the assertion that those biases in the adjustments are valid, or are adequately removed via the various codes are just that: Assertions.

In this graph, the dark red line is the difference between the two versions. V3 is the thin yellow line while v1 is the thin blue line. Recently, v3 is above v1. When we move into the past, v3 goes below v1. That is, the present has been warmed while the past has been cooled.

The recent warming is about 1/4 C while the more distant cooling is up to a full 1 C, but generally about 1/2 C. Overall, about 0.75 C of “Warming Trend” is in the v3 data that was not in the v1 data.

It is after that 0.75 C of added ‘trend’ that GISS ‘does what they do’ and add more trend.

At that point, having a finer ‘grain’ on the archive is interesting, but doesn’t add much to understanding…

Jan P Perlwitz says:
January 18, 2013 at 1:41 pm
Once more, Mr. Watts posts an article on his blog, which insinuates that GISS scientists committed fraud, i.e., they are being accused of doing not scientifically legitimate manipulations of the data for the purpose to deceive, by making the anthropogenic influence on climate larger than it was. The “skeptic” crowd in the forum understands the cue and transforms the insinuation into open accusation. ………….
================================================================
Please see my post above.
Gunga Din says:
January 18, 2013 at 8:05 am
Again, I don’t know what these may have to do with GISS, but can you explain to me why these record highs have been changed?
PS I haven’t compared the record lows yet. I wonder what I’ll find?

Jan P Perlwitz,
I would be delighted if you could explain to me how thousands of dedicated thermometer readers who wrote down in plain english their readings could have been so wrong.
Perhaps they were dyslexic or plain stupid, that the real data from the past is altered in any way shape or form when people are looking for a trend is just plain fraud. Looking for a trend is different to looking for an absolute. Fraud fraud fraud.

Perhaps then you can explain why such big adjustments have been made to Icelandic data?

In October, I asked NOAA to provide the calculations GHCN had made for one station in Iceland for homogenisation. Bryant Korzeniewski at NOAA told me this would not be a problem. Yet 3 months later, I still have no reply, despite chasing several times.

I realise you work for GISS, but I am sure in the interests of transparency, you could use your influence at NOAA to expedite this.

But it gets worse! On top of GHCN adjustments, GISS have substantially INCREASED the warming trend at Reykjavik for UHI, instead of REDUCING it. The Iceland Met confirm there have been no station changes etc that would justify this. But when I challenged Reto Ruedy, he was unable to explain it either.

Jan P Perlwitz says: January 18, 2013 at 1:
=============================
Your comment justifies GISS data tampering that adulterates the temperature record while impugning the motives of the critics of such adulteration. GISS is notorious, and you pretend that nothing is wrong with it. Your lack of balance in this question is remarkable, even unconscionable.

What amazes me is that any “unusual” period of weather such as a hot OR a cold summer, or a hot OR a cold winter, or dry weather OR wet weather, can apparently always be explained by the man-made global warming experts with yet another modification to their theories to suit the prevailing weather patterns at the time. If they are so certain that they understand global warming and its effects why can they not predict the weather more accurately in the near or distant future? It is because the climate is, and always has been, variable and unpredictable. It is just as likely that tomorrow will begin an unusual period of colder global weather as it is to get hotter.

Mr J Moore says:
January 19, 2013 at 11:18 am
What amazes me is that any “unusual” period of weather such as a hot OR a cold summer, or a hot OR a cold winter, or dry weather OR wet weather, can apparently always be explained by the man-made global warming experts with yet another modification to their theories to suit the prevailing weather patterns at the time. If they are so certain that they understand global warming and its effects why can they not predict the weather more accurately in the near or distant future? It is because the climate is, and always has been, variable and unpredictable. It is just as likely that tomorrow will begin an unusual period of colder global weather as it is to get hotter.
=======================================================================
Amid all the discussions about how much this or that may or may not effect this or that, it is easy to miss the main point. Man ain’t to blame.
But those out for control or just to make a buck have latched onto CAGW. (Though many like AlGore are beginning to bail out.) CAGW is what stuck against the wall.

The custodians or curators or whatever of the climate data archive are the very people implicated in its destruction. They can do whatever they like to the data and are accountable to nobody. This is reminiscent of false prophets (pardon the tautology) such as Nongqawuse or Bernadette of Lourdes who claimed to be the only ones allowed to see and speak with the sacred apparations. Perhaps the most scandalous was the “accidental” erasure of the hockey stick data and the miraculous lack of backups. Pull the other one, it’s got bells on it…